Fox Searchlight describes the film as “an other-wordly fairy tale, set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1963. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa (Hawkins) is trapped in a life of silence and isolation. Her life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda (Spencer) discover a secret classified experiment.”

The experiment apparently is an “aquatic man,” played by Jones, a frequent del Toro collaborator who has appeared in the writer-director’s Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy movies as well as his FX series The Strain.